1892
July 7
(No 10)
History of Flicker's nest.
Mass.
Concord.-  The time which the old bird spent at
the nest rarely exceeded half-a-minute. On leaving
it he always flew straight off over the open fields
to a distance of at least a quarter of a mile beyond which
I lost sight of him behind some trees. His return
was with equal regularity made by way of an orchard
(which extends down to the landing from the neighboring
hillside) and so [delete] stealthily[/delete] stealthily that I rarely saw him
until he came into the tree and sometimes not until
he appeared at the opening [delete] of [/delete] to the nest. His bill
was always closed up to the moment of contact
with that of the first young selected and I could
detect no enlargement of the throat or other evidence
that his mouth contained food. In fact it was
clear enough that he swallowed all the food which he
obtained during these trips and afterwards supplied
it to the young by a process of regurgitation. What
this food consisted of I can only conjecture for I
did not succeed in finding any of it in the nest
or attached to the bills of the young & I could not 
bring myself to kill one of the latter and settle
the point in that way.
  On the morning of the 6th I found the young for
the first time clinging to the walls of their cell
about midway between the bottom & top. Later in
the day they showed their heads at the opening
where the parent came to find them and on the
7th they spent much of their time peeping out
over the rim [delete] and [/delete] with evident curiosity and interest
and two climbed quite outside at one time. When
a boat appeared or there was any sudden noise